Aircraft sensors and associated recording units or cockpit indicators are typically either communicating all digital or analog information. Newer aircraft have solid-state sensor technology with processing systems and indicators that are designed to operate on the output of the solid-state sensors. Because older aircraft have analog sensors, it is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to maintain these older sensors. Thus, it is preferred to replace old sensors with newer, cheaper, and easier to maintain solid-state sensors, such as Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensors.
The problem with replacing the old style sensors with new solid-state sensors is that the existing systems that connect with the old style sensors still need to receive the data in the same format that was outputted by the old style sensors. One solution is to replace the processing systems and indicators with processing systems and indicators that are compatible with the new sensors. This, of course, is prohibitively expensive.
Another solution is to translate the data that is outputted by the solid-state sensors into a format that is compatible with the existing systems and indicators within the aircraft. Current translators or converters utilize look-up tables or oscillators to create the proper formatted signals for input into the existing systems and indicators. However, these methods are costly and difficult to implement. Traditional methods require memory (for look-up tables) and/or oscillators that lower system reliability and utilize sync signals which can be susceptible to EMI. Implementation using look-up tables also has finite resolutions bounded by their digital size.
Therefore, there exists a need for simply and inexpensively converting the signals of solid-state sensors for use by the existing systems and indicators on an aircraft.